My Favourite Food Swaps
I've been cleaning up my diet for the past 6 months - really successfully for the last two and a half (excluding Christmastime oops), and less successfully for the previous four. People say that losing weight takes time, but I'm convinced that first it goes slow and then all at once, especially if you need to lose just a few stubborn lbs.
One thing that has been key to my weight loss/fitness journey is finding great food swaps. There has been plenty of trial and error with this, so I've included a list of bad food swaps. Not falling into these traps is just as important as finding food swaps that work well for you.
There are plenty of social media posts about this, but I find that the suggestions are either boring or straight up bad advice. For example, swapping sugary breakfast cereal for porridge/oats 🙅 I personally find oats to be really bland, no matter how much cinnamon I add. But I forced myself to eat it because I was convinced that it would help me reach my goals. I was so wrong. Oats are actually quite calorie dense, and they never left me feeling satiated, most likely because I didn't find them at all tasty.
Changing out real peanut butter for powdered peanut butter - this is a tad controversial, because I know lots of people swear by this, and I can't argue with the fact that powdered peanut butter does have significantly fewer calories (less than half the calories, in fact). Nevertheless, I'm convinced that this food swap is, if you excuse the cliché, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Peanut butter is a good source of healthy fats and it is the fat in peanut butter that helps you feel full. So while a switch to powdered PB might save you some calories in the moment, throughout the day you'll eat more calories than the initial saving. That's my experience, in any case. In short, enjoy the goodness of natural peanut butter in moderation, and you're good to go.
Swapping sugar for stevia - Yes, stevia has zero calories, and that can be very appealing for people looking to lose some weight. If you need a sugar fix, try and exchange it first for dried fruit and then for fresh fruit. This will help ease you out of those sugar cravings, and intermittent fasting will also help with that. Watch out for my upcoming post for some tips on intermittent fasting.
Swapping ice cream for 'nice cream' → this is a photo from an old post I wrote about nice cream (ah, I was so young and naive :)) ). Looks yummy doesn't it? How healthy, what an awesome guilt-free alternative to dairy ice cream, right? Wrong, wrong it's all lies!!!!1
So obviously I'm exaggerating, but it is only because the false advertising of nice cream is simply symptomatic of other greater problems with the HCLF vegan diet and its heavy promotion on social media. I'm no longer HCLF vegan - in fact, I'm no longer vegan full stop, although my diet is still 80% plant-based. If you'd like to read about why I'm no longer vegan, let me know in the comments and I'll write a post (and no, I didn't stop eating 100% vegan because I believe it's not nutritionally balanced - I continue to believe that it is perhaps the healthiest diet out there if done correctly).
Anyway, back to nice cream. The problem with it is that while it's made of healthy fruit, it's WAAYY more calorific than you might initially think. In order to get any reasonable amount of nice cream, you'll probably use three frozen bananas if not more, so that's at least 330-ish calories. And that's not including toppings/additions that make it interesting/a mildly acceptable replacement for ice cream - whether that's peanut butter, or a bit of chocolate or some maple syrup ... you can see where I'm going with this. In any case, 300 calories for a bowl of ice cream isn't that little. You can get a Magnum icecream for about 315-350 calories (depending on the flavour) and that tastes really indulgent. Yes, of course the natural sugars in bananas are better for you than the added sugar in a Magnum/other ice cream, but even natural sugars aren't good for you in excess. To be honest, I'm convinced that consuming smoothies and nice cream often was the reason for a bout of acne I developed about a year ago. Check out my post on my skincare routine for how I maintain my skin now.
Cornflakes instead of dessert → This is my favourite food swap by far. I used to have something sweet after lunch and dinner - those calories really add up. Cornflakes are an alternative that work really well for me. Of course, the nutritional values vary depending on the brand you buy. Kellogg's has 4g of added sugar per serving, but Nestle's has only 2g! That's pretty good for something which (I find) is so tasty! Cereal isn't just for breakfast, y'all ☆
Peanut/Almond butter and banana instead of dessert → This is the perfect combination of sugar and fat to satisfy your dessert cravings - but without added sugar and only healthy fats! I sometimes replace the banana with an apple when I'm making a snack, but that doesn't satisfy my sweet tooth in the same way tbh.
Peanut butter + sweet potato → THIS IS THE BEST ONE! I saved the best for last. This was my go-to when I was trying to eat less sugar in general (yes, including natural sugars because at one point I was overeating fruit for sure). Honestly, for me having this is very reminiscent of having some kind of cake/pie for dessert, especially if you cook the sweet potatoes right (it requires a bit more time in the oven than you might think - for the best results cook until the inside is quite soft - you should not need a knife to eat it). This is actually healthier than the banana option above. Sweet potatoes have better macros than bananas per gram - for a banana's 23 grams of carbs, sweet potatoes have 20. You can see the full list here. And yes, while bananas have more healthy fats, you'll already be getting good fats from the nut butter, so no issues there.
One thing that has been key to my weight loss/fitness journey is finding great food swaps. There has been plenty of trial and error with this, so I've included a list of bad food swaps. Not falling into these traps is just as important as finding food swaps that work well for you.
Sad food swaps 😢
There are plenty of social media posts about this, but I find that the suggestions are either boring or straight up bad advice. For example, swapping sugary breakfast cereal for porridge/oats 🙅 I personally find oats to be really bland, no matter how much cinnamon I add. But I forced myself to eat it because I was convinced that it would help me reach my goals. I was so wrong. Oats are actually quite calorie dense, and they never left me feeling satiated, most likely because I didn't find them at all tasty.
Changing out real peanut butter for powdered peanut butter - this is a tad controversial, because I know lots of people swear by this, and I can't argue with the fact that powdered peanut butter does have significantly fewer calories (less than half the calories, in fact). Nevertheless, I'm convinced that this food swap is, if you excuse the cliché, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Peanut butter is a good source of healthy fats and it is the fat in peanut butter that helps you feel full. So while a switch to powdered PB might save you some calories in the moment, throughout the day you'll eat more calories than the initial saving. That's my experience, in any case. In short, enjoy the goodness of natural peanut butter in moderation, and you're good to go.
Swapping sugar for stevia - Yes, stevia has zero calories, and that can be very appealing for people looking to lose some weight. If you need a sugar fix, try and exchange it first for dried fruit and then for fresh fruit. This will help ease you out of those sugar cravings, and intermittent fasting will also help with that. Watch out for my upcoming post for some tips on intermittent fasting.
So obviously I'm exaggerating, but it is only because the false advertising of nice cream is simply symptomatic of other greater problems with the HCLF vegan diet and its heavy promotion on social media. I'm no longer HCLF vegan - in fact, I'm no longer vegan full stop, although my diet is still 80% plant-based. If you'd like to read about why I'm no longer vegan, let me know in the comments and I'll write a post (and no, I didn't stop eating 100% vegan because I believe it's not nutritionally balanced - I continue to believe that it is perhaps the healthiest diet out there if done correctly).
Anyway, back to nice cream. The problem with it is that while it's made of healthy fruit, it's WAAYY more calorific than you might initially think. In order to get any reasonable amount of nice cream, you'll probably use three frozen bananas if not more, so that's at least 330-ish calories. And that's not including toppings/additions that make it interesting/a mildly acceptable replacement for ice cream - whether that's peanut butter, or a bit of chocolate or some maple syrup ... you can see where I'm going with this. In any case, 300 calories for a bowl of ice cream isn't that little. You can get a Magnum icecream for about 315-350 calories (depending on the flavour) and that tastes really indulgent. Yes, of course the natural sugars in bananas are better for you than the added sugar in a Magnum/other ice cream, but even natural sugars aren't good for you in excess. To be honest, I'm convinced that consuming smoothies and nice cream often was the reason for a bout of acne I developed about a year ago. Check out my post on my skincare routine for how I maintain my skin now.
Great food swaps 🙌
Cornflakes instead of dessert → This is my favourite food swap by far. I used to have something sweet after lunch and dinner - those calories really add up. Cornflakes are an alternative that work really well for me. Of course, the nutritional values vary depending on the brand you buy. Kellogg's has 4g of added sugar per serving, but Nestle's has only 2g! That's pretty good for something which (I find) is so tasty! Cereal isn't just for breakfast, y'all ☆Peanut/Almond butter and banana instead of dessert → This is the perfect combination of sugar and fat to satisfy your dessert cravings - but without added sugar and only healthy fats! I sometimes replace the banana with an apple when I'm making a snack, but that doesn't satisfy my sweet tooth in the same way tbh.
Peanut butter + sweet potato → THIS IS THE BEST ONE! I saved the best for last. This was my go-to when I was trying to eat less sugar in general (yes, including natural sugars because at one point I was overeating fruit for sure). Honestly, for me having this is very reminiscent of having some kind of cake/pie for dessert, especially if you cook the sweet potatoes right (it requires a bit more time in the oven than you might think - for the best results cook until the inside is quite soft - you should not need a knife to eat it). This is actually healthier than the banana option above. Sweet potatoes have better macros than bananas per gram - for a banana's 23 grams of carbs, sweet potatoes have 20. You can see the full list here. And yes, while bananas have more healthy fats, you'll already be getting good fats from the nut butter, so no issues there.
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